Analogue: A Hate Story

Some games are a strange mystery that take you on a journey you didn't entirely expect.

Analogue: A Hate Story is definitely one of those.

Before we beginI'm a sucker for a game that tells a really deep story. Most games I've played, even proper adventure games, have only a modestly deep story - and a game that engages me thoroughly to tell its story is going to be a winner in my book. Especially if there are multiple endings whose revelations you can provoke with your choices.

That sounds a bit weird but one of the game developers I've looked up to over the years once described a game as "a series of meaningful choices", and if that's what Analogue offers, and at a glance it seems like it might, it should be an interesting game.

The setting, then, is that there was a ship, the Mugunghwa, setting forth from Earth in 2415. Now, the Mugunghwa is a transgenerational ship, as in it doesn't really go fast enough to get from place to place in hours or days (like Star Trek does), and so the ship's journey is going to take decades or longer, meaning that the onboard residents will continue their journey through generations.

What that also means is that onboard such a ship, there needs to be a large enough population, and there will be all kinds of politics to go with that.

Anyway, the ship was never heard from again, and after a very long time, the ship is found again, only everyone is dead. Your job is to explore the ship's computer records and try to find out what happened to the crew.

Playing the gameSo firstly, the mission.

Right, so we've communicated with the ship and it's given us a command line. A few things to note - firstly, it's a command line. This is not a problem for me being a decent level programmer, but I can imagine this would confuse a lot of people. I can't help but feel that I should probably be taking more note of this. Already I'm getting the impression that there are going to be more clues buried in everything I see.

OK, so I can't download anything or access any of the admin functions, and it's telling me I need to enable an AI. Firing up the enable_ai command shows me that there's only one available AI - *Hyun-ae - which isn't the AI *Mute that I was encouraged to speak to. Interesting, very interesting.

Once the AI is activated you can leave the terminal and speak to the AI itself, and that's where it gets interesting, of course.

So, this is *Hyun-ae.

As *Hyun-ae says, the star is silent and merely represents that she is an AI. The game subsequently asks you to introduce yourself but it doesn't work out very well, and essentially seems to be a handwave against needing to handle text inputting on a regular basis when *Hyun-ae says she can't understand what you're saying.

But we're not unable to communicate entirely, just not through free-form input.

*Hyun-ae continues to explain how this is going to work; you're going to be shown various of the system logs and you can show specific ones to her if you would like further information, but she's gushing a little because she's been alone for so long.

*Hyun-ae then leaves you at the main menu of operations and it dawns on me how this game is going to work. It's a sort of interactive story/textual adventure but without a limited text parser. The game, at this point, presents you with three options - speak to *Hyun-ae, access the logs and revert to the console. There's also a block indicating what logs are waiting to be read.

I guess, at this point in time, the first thing to do is dig into the logs. There are a set of blocks of memory to examine, and in each one is a list of one or more logs you can currently access.

There's a *lot* of reading to do in this game, which is why I think it's a text adventure of sorts. Note that there is no voice over work, so that it's just straight reading.

It all centres around these two families onboard the Mugunghwa, the Smith family and the Kim family and the various machinations that occur. Note that there is a very firm sense of honour and loyalty going on, and more importantly there is a very large social thing going on. It really isn't a spoiler for me to quote one of the 'helpful notes' that *Hyun-ae gives you early on: "Namjon yeobi. -- Men are honoured, women are abased. If you can only remember one thing, remember this phrase."

Yes, the game is like that. I will speak more of this at length later.

Mechanically, there's not really a lot to this game, but there's not supposed to be. From this point, it's pretty much all point and click to scroll through the logs, and ask *Hyun-ae about them. And as you do that, you'll get her comments and sometimes she'll give you new things to read. After a fashion she'll also re-enable admin access for you (though finding the admin password is your own concern entirely... just be careful in what you read and you will find it, and it does require putting some of the mental pieces together just a little)

There is a lot to read. A LOT. And if you're not used to the naming conventions of a Korean culture, which this seems to be emulating, it's harder to follow what's going on.

On that bombshellThe depth of this game is not in the playing. It's very bland mechanically, you just click through screens and click on what you want to see next. The real skill is in digesting everything that's presented to you and making sense of the story that the game is presenting.

There are 5 endings, I've seen 2 of them. Plus dealt with one of the key puzzles the game gives you, though this particular puzzle requires the console and typing, and it's possible to screw it up in a variety of ways. You have control as to which ending you will see. You are presented with meaningful choices which affect how the story is revealed to you, and you make choices from there as to what its conclusion will be.

What I will tell you is that, firstly, you will encounter both *Hyun-ae and *Mute. You will learn some very grim truths about them and all the other characters in the story. Very grim indeed.

It is not for nothing that this game is called a Hate Story. I will not reveal what that is but it certainly is not for the faint of heart. As already mentioned there is a very strong theme of female empowerment vs male supremacy; this game is something of a commentary on certain social systems. What follows leaves an impression upon you, or if it doesn't, you're doing it wrong.

Analogue: A Hate Story is very dark. It's a story that once you get caught up in it, you feel compelled to see it through, but it may be too much for you to get caught up with in the first place. Some have likened it to a horror movie, in seeing how unpleasant a direction it can take, and I don't think that's entirely an unfair comparison. The horror doesn't hit you with gruesomeness or abundance, it's a very subtle skein through the logs and conversations with *Hyun-ae and *Mute.

The fate of the Mugunghwa... the seeds of that story are even hinted at on that first screen as I wondered if they would be. Everywhere you go there are little clues as to what happened, before you finally learn the full truth of what happened and why.

I've seen two of the endings, and I am curious to know how that knowledge will affect my future play-throughs of the game as I want to see the others. I'm not normally one for horror games but this has a sense of foreboding about it that intrigues me. I find myself wanting to explore the other options, even aware of the arc of the story, to see what other surprises the game has in store for me. I feel almost compelled to see it through, to understand the story being told.

I could tell you more but that would significantly diminish the value of the game, both in terms of its story and its shock value. I fear I may already have given away too much.

Interestingly, the (female) author has had comments about why she hates men. That isn't the take-away I got from this game. I mention it because it will give you some food for thought when playing the game. The game isn't anti-male and if you're a male playing it and thinking that, perhaps you're doing it wrong. That's not the story to take away from this game.

Nor is it feminist ideology wrapped up in a cute bow, no matter what some of the commentators on the author's blog seem to think. It's a collection of thoughts about gender roles, about how gender roles work societally and historically, and about how that can work in a smaller confined society. There is some other stuff but I can't say it without spoiling a key plot point (though the pieces are already in this article)

All in all, as much as it gave me thoughts of horror, I liked this game. The story telling approach is interesting, if not thoroughly interactive, and it works very well for this story. I doubt it would work well for other stories. Analogue: A Hate Story is somewhere between a text adventure, an interactive story and a visual novel, and doesn't fit into any of those categories, yet still works and stands on its own in the process.

I'd suggest giving it a try - there's a free demo after all, and seeing if you like where it starts off. If you do, I'd suggest playing it through but being prepared for what amounts to a series of mindf***s as the game goes on. Once you get past the initial stuff, it gets very dark, very quickly. Please understand this is not for the faint of heart. There are also a number of ironies the game exposes, which are very interesting if you see them, especially if you see them for what they are, but that really requires seeing at least two of the non-failure endings.

You'll find it on Steam and Desura, whichever works for you, for both Windows and OS X for $10. All I would ask is that, despite what I've said, you approach it with an open mind.